We've got a mini-trend in road-safety advertising: stories told in reverse. This spot, by Lowe Strateus for Securite Routiere in France, opens with a wrenchingly realistic hospital scene (Christ, the guy lost a leg!) and then tracks back to a few hours earlier, when the driver avoids his fate by choosing to spend the night at a friend's house. It's a powerful twist on a theme explored in last year's New Mexico PSA with the drunk driver in jail visited by his dead daughter, setting a flashback in motion. The U.S. spot is more jarring because its message is so bleak and final. The French clip offers a way out, if folks act responsibly in the decisive moment. But then, the French ad has the bloody stump! OK, let's call it even.

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We've got a mini-trend in road-safety advertising: stories told in reverse. This spot, by Lowe Strateus for Securite Routiere in France, opens with a wrenchingly realistic hospital scene (Christ, the guy lost a leg!) and then tracks back to a few hours earlier, when the driver avoids his fate by choosing to spend the night at a friend's house. It's a powerful twist on a theme explored in last year's New Mexico PSA with the drunk driver in jail visited by his dead daughter, setting a flashback in motion. The U.S. spot is more jarring because its message is so bleak and final. The French clip offers a way out, if folks act responsibly in the decisive moment. But then, the French ad has the bloody stump! OK, let's call it even.